Kenapa Pendidikan Awal Penting?

 

The period from birth to age eight – and especially, from birth to age three – is a critical time in baby brain development.  This is because the first years of life lay the neurological foundation for intellectual growth into adolescence and adulthood.  From the moment of conception, the neurons (nerve cells) of the brain multiply faster than any other cells in a baby’s body.  The rapid pace of baby brain development continues into early childhood: at birth, the brain weighs 25 percent of its adult weight; by age one, 50 percent; by age two, 75 percent; and by age three, 90 percent. The brain of an adult has over 100 billion neurons, the majority of which were formed during the first five months in the womb! Recent research suggests that new neurons can be created throughout life – but probably only in sufficient numbers to replace those that have died.

Each of the brain’s neurons is connected to roughly 5,000 others. In general, the more dendrites (branches between neurons) and synapses (connections between neurons) the brain has, the greater its processing power. More pathways mean information can travel in a number of ways, opening the door to faster and more complex thinking.

This is true in the adult, but not in the infant. Your baby’s brain actually has more synapses than yours – but only because it hasn’t passed an important developmental stage, known as pruning, in which the brain deletes unneeded neural connections in the interests of organization and efficiency.

SO "USE IT OR LOSE IT"????